Constitutional Law
Jul. 14, 2026
The troubling implications of the Supreme Court's transgender athlete decision
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding West Virginia's ban on transgender girls participating in girls' sports continues its recent pattern of rejecting transgender rights claims while weakening the constitutional protections traditionally applied to sex discrimination.
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).
On June 30, 2026, the last day of October Term 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court decided West Virginia v. B.P.J. and upheld state laws that prohibit transgender girls and women from participating in sports that correspond to their gender identity. Although the decision was not a surprise, it is troubling both in the pattern of the Supreme Court's failure to protect transgender individuals from discrimination and in its potential implications for how it treats sex discrimina...
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